


Professional Development

by Flossie



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Action, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Epic Battles, F/F, F/M, Fights, M/M, Suspense, Time Travel, villain!katasuke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-03-20 16:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18996658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flossie/pseuds/Flossie
Summary: Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura undertake a dangerous mission to learn more about their families and about their village's past. Little do they know, the science commissioner of the Hidden Leaf is up to something (and by the way the founders are, like, irresistibly hot)! A couple missteps and the founding and future of the village would both be in peril! How will Team Seven navigate professional and romantic relationships with their heroes *and* return home in time to save their children from Katasuke's evil plan?Rated T for swearing, canon-typical violence, maybe some smooching





	1. Katasuke: A Shady Scientist

_I’ve been waiting for this_ , Katasuke Tohno mused to himself as he stirred a large vat of a viscous, violently green liquid. _Lord Hokage has no idea what’s coming his way._

The corner of Katasuke’s lip was just beginning to curl upwards when he heard three sets of ninja sandals coming down the corridor: _tak-tak, tak-tak, tak-tak._ He looked up to see the Seventh Hokage, flanked by his Shadow and his surgeon general.

“What did you ask us here to talk about, Mister Katasuke?” Lord Seventh asked. The high pitch of the Hokage’s raspy voice took him by surprise.

“Well, Lord Seventh, I’ve managed to synthetically create a substance that simulates the effects of time-space ninjutsu without absorbing the user’s chakra.” Katasuke didn’t mention the chakra costs of creating such a substance. What the Hokage doesn’t know can’t be used against him.

The Shadow’s one visible eye glowed red as he scanned the substance with his dojutsu. He addressed the Hokage: “I see a strong amount of chakra infused in the substance. I believe Mr. Tohno’s claims to be entirely plausible.”

The surgeon pulled on a pair of gloves and approached the vat. “Is it safe to touch?” she asked. Katasuke nodded, so the surgeon dipped her hand into the vat, then let the substance drip through her fingers as she scanned it. She then deftly removed and disposed of her gloves, stepped back, and told the Hokage: “There are no toxic chemicals in that compound. I believe it to be safe to inhale and ingest.”

The Hokage nodded at his two companions before stepping forward to examine the substance himself. Katasuke knew it was safe, because he’d tested it on… well never mind whom his test subjects had been. What matters is that Katasuke had no reason to feel as anxious as he did feel as the Hokage himself bent over to look at his creation.

Katasuke took some quiet deep breaths to calm his nerves. He could feel the Shadow and the Surgeon General’s eyes drilling into him. “Lord Hokage,” he asked, “would you like to try it?”

 *** 

“I’m sending you back to the founding of this village, so you can reconnect with the ideals that made Konoha what it originally was, Lord Hokage, and so you, Lord Shadow, can learn more about what it means to be a ninja of a village. Surgeon General, I believe you may learn a lot of medical ninjutsu from Lord First’s wife Mito, who was Lady Fifth’s grandmother and teacher.” Katasuke said, his voice echoing throughout the stone laboratory.

The three envoys from the Hidden Leaf government nodded solemnly. “Thank you, Mister Katasuke, for the chance to try this out!” the Hokage said with a bow. The Shadow and the Surgeon General bowed too and intoned a muted “Thank you very much.”

Katasuke’s heart raced as he measured precisely 2 grams of the time travel substance for each of his guests, then handed it to them. If things shook out for him, this would be the last time he’d ever have to see those meddling narcs. How gullible they were to just volunteer to use his invention!

“All right, you all will drink the potion in three… two…. one.”

_Gulp. Gulp. Gulp._


	2. Naruto: Into the Past

“Hands where I can see them!” 

“No, honey, it’s fine, it’s an Uzumaki.”

Naruto blinked his eyes against the sudden sunlight and commotion. At first all he could make out were two fuzzy figures arguing about how to address him. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, and slowly realized that he was lying face-up in wet grass. 

“I don’t care who he is! Show me your hands,” the man’s voice insisted. 

Naruto tried to move his hands, but it felt like moving in a dream. He tried to speak, to appease the people, but only managed a croak. 

The woman stepped forward. “Are you oka——” As she approached him, Naruto could feel something wrenching in his gut. She must have felt it too, because she cried out and retreated to the man’s side. Naruto wished he could make out who they were. But he didn’t have much time to wish when the man announced, “Wood style!” And Naruto felt his body be wrapped in warm, animated wooden beams before his mind again went blank. 

 

☁️☁️☁️

 

When Naruto came to again, the awful pain in his navel had subsided, but he was still bound by boughs. He was in a bed in an austere, vintage-inspired room. A woman’s face hung over him, framed by wavy red hair. She looked at once familiar and alien. She was dabbing Naruto’s head with a damp cloth. 

Naruto opened his mouth again, and this time he was able to talk. “Where am I?” He asked gently. 

The woman smiled. “You’re at my house. Don’t worry, beautiful, you’re safe.”

Naruto strained against the wood restraints. “Am I a prisoner?” He asked. 

The woman’s smile edged from warm and welcoming towards a cruel smirk. “Well that depends on whether you’re an enemy or an ally of the Leaf village, dear—“

Naruto’s confusion was evident in his tone. “The village hidden in the leaves? As in THE konohagakure no sato—”

But the woman didn’t want to be interrupted. She held up her hand and Naruto found he couldn’t speak. 

“I said,” she repeated, harsher, darker, “that depends on whether you’re an enemy or an ally of the hidden leaf,  _ dear _ , and on what the  _ hell _ you’re doing with a copy of my nine-tailed beast.” She jabbed a finger at Naruto’s abs. 

A second of silence, then finally, it clicked. “Old lady Mito!” Naruto exclaimed and tried to sit up. The wooden restraints groaned at the force but still held him in place. 

Mito didn’t look happy. She also didn’t look a day over 25. “Who are you calling old lady?” she growled and raised a hand to hit him.

But before she could, Naruto began to run his mouth. He tried, explaining in a confused and excited way, how he was the Seventh Hokage (from the future!) and his teammates had tested out a scientific approximation of a spacetime jutsu, and how he wanted to learn all about the village’s history so he could lead it better, and how he knew who Mito was because he was Kushina’s daughter, and how oh Kushina is someone you’re going to meet later I guess, and how Kushina passed the nine-tails on to him on his first birthday, and how yeah he really is the Hokage, and on and on. He was barely coherent, saying things as he remembered them, not in the order that they happened. But eventually, Mito’s face softened and she was nodding and listening intently. 

“So that beast you have in there… is the same as my beast?” 

“Yeah! But he has a name y’know, it’s Kurama!”

Mito tapped her stomach thoughtfully and repeated, “Kurama.”

“He’s a really nice guy if you get to know him! Sorry he’s probably super angry at you for sealing him away, y’know.”

Mito grimaced. “My seal… Pretty boy, you’re so lucky. I saw your seal, I bet that shit didn’t even hurt. Wanna see mine?”

Naruto tried to sit up again. 

Mito rolled her eyes. She apologized, then yelled out the door, “HASHIRAMA DEAR!!!! LET THE UZUMAKI MAN FREE!”

The wooden beams retreated into the floor and disappeared so Naruto was able to sit up. He rubbed his arms and shoulders and stretched out his back. “That hurt, y’know,” he grumbled.

“So did this!” Mito grinned and pulled up her shirt to show off her belly button, discolored and crisscrossed with scars, and with an intricate spiral pattern tattooed over all of that. 

“Holy shit,” Naruto breathed, “You did this?”

“Yep!” Mito replied proudly as Naruto reached out a fingertip to touch her seal. The skin was rough and irregular, like it had burned away and regrown more than once. He wondered how she was able to withstand the pain. 

He looked up at her, blue eyes wide with wonder. “Does it hurt?”

Mito shrugged. Her tone betrayed her discontent as she replied, “I mean, yeah, sometimes. It’s, like, pretty raw, y’know?”

Naruto caught a chuckle in his throat. “You say it too!”

Mito shushed him. “At least it’s not as bad as yours,” she teased. 

“What did you mean it’s raw?” Naruto asked, bringing his attention back to tracing the lines of her tattoo. 

“I think I just finished this iteration of the seal, what, like…” Mito counted on her fingers, “four moons ago? I mean the wound is still pretty raw. But I think this time I got it right! This seal will hold him forever!”

Naruto flattened his palm to Mito’s stomach. Guilt panged inside him that his journey with Kurama was so easy compared to hers, and he owed it all to her sacrifices. He collected himself, silently, feeling her chakra under his hand, and finally looked up to meet her dark eyes. 

“Give me a fist bump,” Naruto said solemnly, and reached out his left fist. 

“What’s that?” Mito asked.

“Just touch your fist to mine, y’know?”

Mito shrugged and followed suit. And suddenly, it was just her and Naruto and her Kurama and his Kurama in some sort of pocket realm. Naruto scratched his Kurama behind the ear, while Mito struggled to restrain her Kurama with her ink and chakra.

“Kurama, can you talk to him?” Naruto asked his fox. 

The fox growled. “That was a really bad phase in my life, kid. I don’t like to revisit it.” Naruto smacked Kurama and he whined, “Fine.” He stepped through the void, crouched low on four legs, nine bushy tails wagging behind him, and approached the feral version of him. He growled, and the other fox growled back. 

“Mito, let me fight your beast,” Kurama bellowed to the woman still diligently maintaining her seal. 

“I can’t!” She replied, “what if he wins?”

“Then you seal him up again. But if I win, he stops giving you trouble.” Naruto’s Kurama snarled at Mito’s one: “Isn’t that right?”

Mito’s Kurama, through gritted fangs, growled “You’ll never beat me, old man.”

“Just agree to the terms,” the elder fox threatened.

Mito’s Kurama laughed. “I agree!”

And so Mito raised her brush off her paper, released her chakra, and let her demon fox free. 

  
  



	3. Naruto: Battle of the Beasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for some body horror in the beginning of this chapter

> _ “Mito, let me fight your beast,” Kurama bellowed to the woman still diligently maintaining her seal.  _
> 
> _ “I can’t!” She replied, “what if he wins?” _
> 
> _ “Then you seal him up again. But if I win, he stops giving you trouble.” Naruto’s Kurama snarled at Mito’s one: “Isn’t that right?” _
> 
> _ Mito’s Kurama, through gritted fangs, growled “You’ll never beat me, old man.” _
> 
> _ “Just agree to the terms,” the elder fox threatened. _
> 
> _ Mito’s Kurama laughed. “I agree!” _
> 
> _ And so Mito raised her brush off her paper, released her chakra, and let her demon fox free. _

 

The feral beast immediately lunged for Mito, and before anyone could react, he had bitten her arm clean off. Naruto’s Kurama bellowed, “No revenge! This is between you and me, vile beast, and you will leave the humans out of it!”

Mito’s Kurama hissed and growled, but dropped Mito’s arm at her feet and then bounded towards the fox from the future. 

Naruto ran to Mito’s side and wrapped his arms around her, applying pressure to the stump to stop the bleeding. Her frame was sturdier than she expected, about equal parts fat and muscle. It registered to naruto that his elbow was pressed against her soft chest. He didn’t move it. Mito was shaking in pain, but pushed Naruto off of her with her one good arm. 

“Stop,” She stammered, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine, old lady Mito,” Naruto tried to protest. But before he could even get the words out, he noticed the seal of 100 healings glowing on Mito’s forehead. Purple lines curled around her face and down her neck and soon enough she was pulsating with chakra. 

“Bring me my arm,” Mito ordered, still grimacing in pain. 

“You got it, ma’am,” Naruto stammered in surprise.  _ She’s even scarier than my mom _ , he thought to himself. He retrieved the arm, or what was left of it—the dark blue fabric sheath that had been the sleeve of Mito’s turtleneck was crusted with blood and fox spit, sporting 4 gaping holes where kurama’s canines had pierced her skin and muscle. Naruto brought the warm limb over to Mito and held it up to her oozing stump. 

Naruto apologized to Mito for not knowing much medical ninjutsu, but she just shook her head at him and held her good hand over the shoulder. Purple extended from her neck, down across shoulders, and then into her severed arm, crossing over each other and closing the bite holes in seconds. Naruto watched in fascination as the arteries and tendons in her shoulder reconnected themselves, then the muscles and the skin. Finally Mito set her bone back into its socket with a hearty thwack. She shrugged her shoulders a couple times and ripped off the dirty sleeve to reveal an arm that looked good as new. 

Naruto was starstruck. “Woah, just like granny Tsunade!” 

Mito frowned back and him and replied, “Please stop talking about people I’ve never heard of. Now, is your fox winning or is mine?”

The two Uzumakis looked across the void to where the tailed demons were fighting. The battle was furious and destructive. The foxes pulled no punches, detonating long-distance chakra bombs one minute and fighting tooth-and-nail the next. To Naruto’s horror, the beasts seemed evenly matched, and Naruto’s confidence in his Kurama’s ability to beat his past self began to fade.  _ What if, with time, Kurama had gotten weaker? _ He tried to shake the thought out of his head. He watched as the battle reached a lull, the two foxes circling each other in a fighting stance. Naruto wanted to call out, to find out which fox was his, but he didn’t dare distract Kurama lest it gave his opponent an opening to attack. 

“Mito, can you tell which is which?” He whispered.

“No, I was hoping you could,” she whispered back. 

And then, one of the foxes pounced. He left the floor with enough force to shake the void, and Mito caught Naruto as he stumbled. The other fox pounced too, but just a second too late, because the first fox was higher in the air and was able to sink his claws into him, to bring him down to earth with an ear-shattering slam. The losing fox hissed and spat, biting into its captor’s arms and neck to no avail. Eighteen giant tails whipped around, creating gale force winds that caused the two humans to hold each other tighter to keep their balance. 

_ Either my Kurama’s honed his reflexes, or he’s gotten slow in his age, _ thought Naruto. There was no real way for him to tell which one it was. He hoped his fox was the one on top. But no sooner had he thought that than the fox on its back found purchase on the other fox by wrapping his tails around him, restraining his hind legs and flipping the two of them over so he was now on top. He snarled and drooled, sinking his claws into all four of the other fox’s limbs. But the other fox rolled over again, making his captor lose purchase on his legs, and the two foxes pulled apart. With all the limbs and tails and red fur, it was impossible to keep track of which fox was which. But one of them was injured, and he limped backwards, tails pointing low to the ground and ears back. The uninjured fox stood his ground, ears and tail erect. The injured fox retreated to a safe distance and then sat down gingerly, opened his mouth to the sky, and began to prepare a bijuu bomb the size of which Naruto had never even seen before. It was larger than the bomb Naruto and Kurama had made jointly to bomb the Divine Tree.

Mito smirked and elbowed Naruto. “I taught him that, y’know?” she teased.

“Really???”

“No, dumbass! I really hope that one’s yours!”

Naruto grimaced. “I’ve never seen mine make one that big, old lady. I suggest we run for cover…”

Mito cursed but didn’t move, spellbound by the ball of light and dark chakra the fox was forming. Naruto didn’t move either. He couldn’t bear to look away. 

They watched as the other fox curiously didn’t start to parry with a bijuu bomb. Instead, he put his ears back, and began stalking slowly towards the injured fox. 

“Oh my god, that one better be my Kurama,” Naruto worried, voice wavering.

“Which one?” Mito asked, not taking her eyes off the battle.

“I don’t know, the one that’s winning?” 

And then the uninjured fox was bounding towards the bijuu bomb, tails whipping behind him, pure chakra starting to radiate off his skin. Some sort of a bijuu barrier maybe? He sprung at the fox and then both were obscured in a blinding flash of hot white light. Mito and Naruto joined forces to protect their bodies from the blast. 

When the smoke cleared, both foxes were seriously injured, circling each other much more cautiously this time. One was missing an ear and sported an open gash down his side, the other had a serious limp and the fur on his tails singed clean off. Naruto couldn’t even tell which fox had initiated the blast, let alone which was his Kurama. So he continued to hold on to Mito, and she to him, as the jinchuriki watched what was sure to be the last act of the fight.

The foxes were tentative, advancing and backing off, advancing and backing off. With this motion, the space between them slowly shrank, until they were touching shoulder-to-shoulder. They pressed against each other, testing the other’s newly-weakened state. They still seemed, to Naruto’s horror, to be fairly evenly matched. And then the fox with the gash down his side bit into the other fox’s shoulder, hard. The fox screeched in pain but his attacker didn’t let go, even as the wound on his side reopened and his face contorted. No matter how the bitten fox spun and rolled and wagged his tails and wrung his neck, he could not break free.

After watching them struggle, but nothing change, for a whole 60 seconds, Naruto decided he had seen enough. He dropped his arm’s from Mito’s and stepped forward. “Kuramas,” he announced, “this fight is over.” 

The two foxes separated, limping backwards, the loser with singed tails between his legs, the winner with his one ear raised high above his head. 

“So, uhh…” Naruto asked, “Who’s who?” And then, in a more commanding voice, he revised: “Both of you, return to your master.”

And to Mito and Naruto’s absolute relief, the one-eared, victorious fox limped over to Naruto and the loser slunk to Mito’s side. 

  
  



End file.
